In the early developmental stages of the personal computer industry, the transportable or portable computer became very popular. The earlier portable computers use a large power supply and, in actuality, represent a small desktop personal computer. Portable computers available today, on the other hand, are smaller and lighter than a desktop personal computer and allow a user to employ the same software that a desktop computer uses.
The first generation "portable" computers only operate from alternating current wall power. More recent, or next generation, personal computers may use battery power and are truly portable. This enhanced degree of portability arises from recent developments in display technology, disk storage capabilities, and component weight and space technology.
While these advancements help to reduce the size of portable computers, operational limitations yet exist. For example, software that today's portable computers run is generally the same as that which desktop personal computers run. Hence, a portable computer must provide all of the features of a desktop computer, without regard to functional limitations and considerations that are unique to battery-powered portable computers. Portable computers, on the one hand, have the same data flow rates as the desktop computers and, on the other hand, have only limited amounts of power available for short periods of time and may have more limited heat dissipation capability than desktop computers. Today's portable computers make no special accommodations for the differing platforms in the software that they operate. Operating systems (e.g., MS-DOS), Basic Input/Output System (BIOS) software and third party application software is essentially the same for both the portable and desktop computers. This is particularly true with respect to the ways that the software systems handle the different dynamic operating characteristics of the CPU.
As software engineers and programmers develop more highly functional software systems, desktop computers continue to provide increased performance in essentially all areas of system performance. From the introduction of higher computationally capable CPUs, to increased memory, and faster high performance disk drives, demands for operating capabilities of desktop systems are rapidly rising. Portable computer manufacturers really have little choice other than to try to stay apace with these demands.
To date, however, portable computers continue to run either only on A/C power or with large and heavy batteries. In trying to keep up with the performance requirements of the desktop computers, and the new software, some portable computers use expensive components to cut the power requirements. Even so, the heavy batteries that the computers use still fail to provide power for long durations. This means users of conventional portable computers must settle for alternating current wall-powered operation or very short duration battery operation in order to have the performance that third party software systems expect.
In an attempt to design a portable computer that conserves power and that, thereby, yields longer battery operation, some portable computer power systems reduce power consumption of a portable computer while a user is not using the computer. Other portable computer designers conserve power by turning the computer display off when the keyboard is not being used. While these systems help conserve power, they are either impractical because they hinder computer operations or they fail to conserve power when the greatest amount of power drain occurs in the computer. To date, no power conservation system for a portable computer conserves power while the operator uses the computer for meaningful work.
But this is not the only problem with the power supply systems for portable computers. In today's portable computer systems, there is no intelligent system that responds to CPU dynamic operating characteristics. The dynamic operating characteristics of the CPU may include a wide variety of characteristics, including CPU temperature, temperature changes, power consumption, and others. No method or system exists to manage the conservation or optimal use of battery power. No method or system exists to properly monitor and manage the temperature of the rapidly operating and dense electronic circuitry of the CPU in response to compute intensive instructions. Moreover, no method or system exists to assure that when the CPU is effectively isolated from its input/output circuitry that no undesirable effects from dynamic operating characteristics of the CPU will occur. The type of undesirable situations or effects that may occur include the CPU excessively consuming power or reaching excessive temperatures when the CPU executes a large set of instructions that do not include any input/output functions.